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January 29, 2006,  Fourth Sunday after Lent, All Souls' Episcopal Church                

With Authority
 Mark 1: 21 – 28

One of the most interesting passages in the New Testament is our Gospel Text for today. In it Jesus’ listeners are impressed with the way that He taught – with “authority”!  He did not teach or instruct as the religious scribes and rabbi’s did. In the Greek, the word “authority” means “with power” or as one who has been given “a commission” from a higher authority.

How did Jesus’ teaching differ so much from the teaching of the scribes?

Well, He not only taught with authority, but, more precisely, He taught with personal authority.  No scribe ever gave a decision on his own.  He would always begin, ‘There is a teaching that…’ and would then quote his Jewish law experts. “Rabbi Ben-Ezra said this…”, or “Rabbi Heltil said this”. If he made a statement then he would always buttress it with this, that and the next citation or quotation from the great legal masters of the past. The last thing he ever gave was an independent judgment.

 How different was Jesus!  When Jesus spoke, He spoke with utter independence. The scribes lived in the “prison house” of quotation marks. Jesus did not cite any authority and quoted no experts.  He spoke with the finality of the Voice of God.  To the people, it was like a refreshing breeze from heaven to hear someone speak like that.  The positive certainty of Jesus was the very antithesis of the “careful quotations of the Scribes”. The note of personal authority rang out, and that was a note that was so exhilarating to Jesus’ listeners.  

But I think there was another reason why Jesus caught the attention and allegiance of the people.  It was because He didn’t exercise “authority” over people, but rather drew people into the range of a loving authority that could blossom from within themselves, and now, here 2000 years later, He offers this same authority to each of us who believe!

This will be my main focus this morning…………

Question: How will Jesus draw out from you this authority? Can He?

It can be done, my friends…..An illustration from the life of the explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, helps, I think , to explain the special “authority” Jesus had with people, and that he seeks to draw out from each one of us.. As we know, Livingstone explored great sections of the continent of Africa.  Frequently he went where no white man had gone before, or been allowed to go before!  He walked dangerous regions safely, where an army of strangers would have been attacked and wiped out.  His success was due to the fact that he not only healed the natives wherever he traveled, but he always treated all of them, of whatever tribe or disposition with the utmost respect and love and care! He drew them out as did Jesus to His followers. Livingston even called his competitors, the witch doctors, his “professional brothers”.  It was this respect for others and the human dignity he displayed, and his love for all of them which allowed him to travel anywhere safely!

Livingstone held an “authority” among those people which flows only from service and love!  Livingston was obviously emulating Jesus’ same authority and actions. Jesus’ authority with people was there first of all because of His Divine Commission from His Heavenly Father; but secondly, the people granted it to Him on a human level as well because Jesus, too, came healing their sick. Jesus too, gave them a sense of respect for themselves. He spoke the truth in all things. He talked about the “feelings” and “fears” that lie deep within the heart and soul of everyone of us. He moved in sympathy with their hurts, their illnesses and diseases, with their hunger. Jesus spoke to them about the really important things in life—of spiritual values, without which the human soul withers! And Jesus, like them, struggled with the human disappointments, pains and sufferings of life and poured His heart out to them in the Sermon on the Mount—bringing them hope and love and faith! He drew people “out” of themselves!……………………

There is a particular Jewish hasidic prayer that sums up, I think, Jesus’ approach to people.  The prayer is this:

 “Grant us that we may never forget, O Lord, that every man is the son of a King.” 

For that is what Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, came to tell us; that we are all created sons and daughters of God and that we should conduct ourselves accordingly! He gave us dominion and Authority.

Now acting accordingly with this authority  that He so lovingly and resolutely exercised, He wanted people to grab hold of the positive aspects of life.   He was always trying to get others to put into action those things that they knew  to be right and good and just and that deep in their hearts and souls they knew they should be doing!  

Yes, He encouraged people to live out the deepest goodness that they found  in themselves and in the laws of God, but also by reaching out strongly with authority to control the evils with which every generation is confronted. That’s why, in our Gospel for today we find Him, as on many other occasions, acting to drive evil out of the life of humanity.  In this case it was commanding an evil or “unclean” spirit to come out of a man. 

Jesus reached out time and time again to force evil out the lives of men and women.  This often took the form of healing man of his many and various diseases.  But the point we must make here is that Jesus believed that the confrontation of evil, in whatever form it took, was not just His work, but ours as well!!! As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil.

 How does a follower of the Christ come to control evil?  I think the answer is that we will control the evil we face in life by allowing the good within ourselves to manifest itself. It is an empowerment! It is an evolvement! We must learn to recognize, accept, and use the good that we find within ourselves, we must learn the truth that Jesus was teaching when He said that kingdom of heaven is within us!  Frank Lloyd Wright, perhaps the greatest of all the 20th century North American architects, once spoke out against people who scramble through life—cutting themselves off from the divinity within. Are you scrambling? Am I scrambling? 

Certainly this was one of Jesus’ major concerns.  He knew that men and women must learn to listen to the divinity and power for goodness that lies within themselves and to use their personal authority. You and I may not be a David Livingston, but Jesus invites us in our daily lives here at All Souls, Oklahoma City, America to allow this goodness and authority to manifest itself. We must step out and do what we feel God is calling us to do. Are we really listening to that “still small voice. You and I have many callings from God that are similar such as “Feed the hungry….. greet the stranger….visit the sick”, etc…….. We also, because of our uniqueness, have specific callings from God which could be ……….“Become a mentor to a “whiz kid”, teach Sunday School, volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, attend ( or “stay” for) our annual meeting” you know these things before they are said. We must listen and allow the goodness within us, as individuals, to blossom.

 Faith in Jesus Christ allows us to use the authority within us; It is controlling life. It is staying in Communion with God through prayer. Please remember that prayer does not change God; it changes we who pray! The miracle of God’s answer to prayer in not “spectacle”, but it is the action of God in the ordinary world seen through the eyes of faith! To believe, is to believe that God has placed in us the power to do the good that must be done.

Thomas Hardy, the English writer, created many powerful novels and poems.  Some of his novels have been made into splendid and successful motion picture films. One of the best of these was his novel called, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles”,  In the book there is a passage when the eighteen-year-old Tess is riding in a wagon under the stars with her younger brother.  And her brother asks:  “Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?…….. Tess replies, “yes”,………. “All like ours, he asks?”……. Tess says, “ I don’t know, but I think so.  Most of them splendid and sound—a few blighted.”. The brother then asks, “Which do we live on—a splendid one or a blighted one?” ……..Tess replies, “a  blighted one.” 

Our world is a beautiful God-created world to enjoy, but it is indeed, because of our human frailty, a “blighted” one in some ways. So often it seems we have to pick our way through the minefields of life. Despite that fact, when-ever men and women here or there decide to accept the goodness and authority that God has placed within them—and use this power to do good,—then, once more, the world is reborn again and becomes ever so splendid!! 

You and I have the God-given ability to do this. When we do decide to do this and, what in essence, is our decision to adjust their lives to the Will of God, and to answer His Call to us as best we can,…….then and only then will we have true inner peace!

 So there you have it:
Using God’s authority……
Receiving God’s peace……..a balanced equation……
They walk hand in hand!

I offer this prayer…..

“Dear Lord……..please grant that, in our daily lives, we might experience inner peace as we allow the authority and goodness in each of us to blossom and be revealed to the world!”

“In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost………..”

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